Adnominatio in the Plays of Plautus

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Excerpt from Adnominatio in the Plays of Plautus: With Special Reference to Questions of Pronunciation and Orthography Such a classification is made on good authority, as has been shown above, and is required by necessity, for all these various forms alike derive their force from the same principle, the intensive repetition of the same or similar sounds whether with the same or different meanings. See Volkmann ap. v. Müller, Handbuch d. klass. Altertumsiriss. II, 3, 3d ed., pp. 45 - 46. An earnest effort has been made to obtain a correct definition of the term adnominatio, but if this object has not been fully attained, the results of our principal study can scarcely be affected seriously, because of the fact that our investigation is not concerned primarily with adnominatio itself but rather with questions of pronunciation and orthography in the light shed upon them by figures of speech based upon the principle of repetition of sound. The Nature Of The Evidence Employed. The nature of adnominatio does not encourage us to expect definite and positive conclusions as the result of a consideration of our subject. If this figure were always based on words pronounced exactly alike it would furnish indubitable evidence as to pronunciation and orthography. But such examples are rare. Many differ slightly, while others have only a little resemblance. Consequently, the strongest argument that can be fairly employed in any given case is that, an example of adnominatio being intended by the author, he would wish it to be as effective as possible, and it would be the more effective by just so much as the two words might be more nearly alike. Therefore we are warranted in expecting that words employed in an example of adnominatio shall have as nearly the same pronunciation as the laws of the language allow. But one must never fail to recognize the fact that differences, whether small or great, are not inconsistent with our figure and are usually found in its examples. These reasons prevent our claiming for our conclusions any more authority than that of probability. The Collection Of Examples In Plautus. In the definition of our term we have no choice. That has been given to us by the authorities who were best able to understand the usage of the language. The application of our information is more difficult. No one can hope to make a complete and accurate collection of the examples of the figure in any author, because of the varying degrees of similarity in the form of words that he will meet with, and also because of the impossibility of determining the exact intent of the writer. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.